3.7: Evaluation Completion Requirements

Receiving substantive, representative feedback from students about our required medical school curriculum and instructors is crucial in helping the School of Medicine to understand program strengths and weaknesses and identify opportunities to improve the educational experience for future generations of students. In addition, learning to give and receive feedback is an integral part of developing professional skills students will need as future physicians.

Professionalism Requirements for Completing Evaluations

  1. Students must complete all evaluations assigned to them.
  2. All evaluations must be completed within 3 weeks of being assigned.
  3. Required evaluations include:
    1. Evaluations of all required pre-clerkship courses.
    2. Individual evaluations of pre-clerkship faculty and teaching assistants.
    3. Preceptor evaluations for Practice of Medicine (POM).
    4. Small group evaluations for POM.
    5. Quarterly evaluations of the learning environment.
    6. Evaluations of all required clerkships.
    7. Individual evaluations of clerkship instructors.
    8. Annual Mental Health/Wellness Survey.
    9. Educators-4-Care (E4C) program/mentor evaluations.
    10. Scholarly Concentrations mid-program, end-of-program, and mentor evaluations.
    11. Matching Information Survey.
  4. Students are also expected to participate in the following national surveys:
    1. AAMC Matriculating Student Questionnaire (MSQ).
    2. AAMC Year 2 Questionnaire (Y2Q).
    3. AAMC Graduation Questionnaire (GQ).
  5. For the pre-clerkship curriculum, evalutation completion rates will be reviewed after each quarter has finished and the evaluation expiration dates have passed. If a student has not completed at least 75% of the evaluations assigned during the quarter, their E4C mentor will be alerted. The student will receive feedback about professionalism expectations from their mentor and/or advisor.
  6. Evaluation completion rates will continue to be checked for each subsequent quarter. If a student completes less than 75% of the evaluations assigned during a subsequent quarter, the E4C mentor will be alerted that there has been a second lapse in professionalism due to incomplete evaluations. The student will receive additional feedback regarding professionalism expectations and a warning that any further lapse may result in a referral to the Committee for Performance, Professionalism and Promotion (CP3).
  7. If a student completes less than 75% of evaluations in another quarter (third violation), the student may be referred to CP3 for a professionalism concern.
  8. Failure to complete other required evaluations (clerkship, scholarly concentration, wellness, etc.) may also lead to E4C mentors being notified. Repeated failure to complete these assigned evaluations may also result in a referral to CP3.

Use of Professional Language in Evaluations

  1. Comments provided in evaluations should be constructive, respectful, and framed using language the evaluator would want to hear used if they were being evaluated.
  2. Written comments provided in student evaluations are confidential (i.e., faculty cannot access information about the identity of an individual student who provides comments in an evaluation form). However, if a student submits a written comment in an evaluation form that violates either: a) the Stanford Affirmation; or b) the School of Medicine Technical, Non-Academic Standards; or c) if there are concerns about student safety or well-being that comment may be subject to review by committee.
  3. Any instructor, staff, or student may request that a comment be reviewed to determine whether it violates the Stanford Affirmation or the School of Medicine Technical, Non-Academic Standards, or if there are concerns for student safety or wellbeing.
  4. Comments in question will be brought before the Evaluation Review Committee. This committee will consist of the following members (or their designees): The Director of Evaluation, the Assistant Dean for Pre-Clerkship Education, the Assistant Dean for Medical Education, the Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education, an E4C Program Director, a representative from the Student Advising Team, and a medical student representative.
  5. If the review committee determines that the comment violates the Stanford Affirmation or the School of Medicine Technical, Non-Academic Standards or there is sufficient reason to be concerned for student safety or wellbeing, a request may be made to try to determine the identity of the evaluation writer. In this case, the Director of Evaluation and Instructional Development will contact the vendor where the evaluation data is housed (generally MedHub) to request that their staff share with us the identity of the student who committed the violation in their evaluation.
  6. The student who wrote a comment that is determined to have violated the Stanford Affirmation or the School of Medicine Technical, Non-Academic Standards may be asked to revise the comment and/or submit an apology to the faculty member and/or the course or curriculum leader the comment targeted.
  7. In the case of a violation of the Stanford Affirmation or the School of Medicine Technical, Non-Academic Standards, the student’s E4C mentor and Advising Dean will be notified. The student will receive feedback about professionalism expectations and a warning that a second lapse will lead to a referral to CP3.
  8. If the student submits a second comment that the Evaluation Review Committee determines to have violated the Stanford Affirmation or the School of Medicine Professionalism Principles the student will be referred to the Committee on Performance, Professionalism and Promotion (CP3).

updated August 2023